Teresa Scassa

Privacy and Open Government

The public-oriented goals of the open government movement promise increased transparency and accountability of governments, enhanced citizen engagement and participation, improved service delivery, economic development and the stimulation of innovation. In part, these goals are to be achieved by making more and more government information public in reusable formats and under open licences. This paper identifies three broad privacy challenges raised by open government. The first is how to balance privacy with transparency and accountability in the context of “public” personal information. The second challenge flows from the disruption of traditional approaches to privacy based on a collapse of the distinctions between public and private sector actors. The third challenge is that of the potential for open government data—even if anonymized—to contribute to the big data environment in which citizens and their activities are increasingly monitored and profiled.

The inadvertent disclosure of personal health information through peer-to-peer file sharing programs

OBJECTIVEnThere has been a consistent concern about the inadvertent disclosure of personal information through peer-to-peer file sharing applications, such as Limewire and Morpheus. Examples of personal health and financial information being exposed have been published. We wanted to estimate the extent to which personal health information (PHI) is being disclosed in this way, and compare that to the extent of disclosure of personal financial information (PFI).nnnDESIGNnAfter careful review and approval of our protocol by our institutional research ethics board, files were downloaded from peer-to-peer file sharing networks and manually analyzed for the presence of PHI and PFI. The geographic region of the IP addresses was determined, and classified as either USA or Canada.nnnMEASUREMENTnWe estimated the proportion of files that contain personal health and financial information for each region. We also estimated the proportion of search terms that return files with personal health and financial information. We ascertained and discuss the ethical issues related to this study.nnnRESULTSnApproximately 0.4% of Canadian IP addresses had PHI, as did 0.5% of US IP addresses. There was more disclosure of financial information, at 1.7% of Canadian IP addresses and 4.7% of US IP addresses. An analysis of search terms used in these file sharing networks showed that a small percentage of the terms would return PHI and PFI files (ie, there are people successfully searching for PFI and PHI on the peer-to-peer file sharing networks).nnnCONCLUSIONnThere is a real risk of inadvertent disclosure of PHI through peer-to-peer file sharing networks, although the risk is not as large as for PFI. Anyone keeping PHI on their computers should avoid installing file sharing applications on their computers, or if they have to use such tools, actively manage the risks of inadvertent disclosure of their, their familys, their clients, or patients PHI.

Geographical Information as 'Personal Information'

The rapid proliferation of applications using geographical information combined with the growing accessibility of vast quantities of data of all kinds has given rise to a number of data protection challenges. Information is placed in geographic context by governments, private sector actors, and even by individuals; compilations of data may be sole-authored or crowd-sourced, and are frequently made available over the internet. This paper explores a key question in the data protection context: when is information placed in geographical context personal information? Particular challenges in answering this question include the way in which geographical information may be a key to re-identifying de-identified data, and how it can be used to link aggregate demographic data to specific individuals.

Mapping Traditional Knowledge: Digital Cartography in the Canadian North

Digital cartography offers exciting opportunities for recording indigenous knowledge, particularly in contexts where a people’s relationship to the land has high cultural significance. Canada’s north offers a useful case study of both the opportunities and challenges of such projects. Through the Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre (GCRC), Inuit peoples have been invited to become partners in innovative digital mapping projects, including creating atlases of traditional place names, recording the patterns and movement of sea ice, and recording previously uncharted and often shifting traditional routes over ice and tundra. Such projects have generated interest in local communities because of their potential to record and preserve traditional knowledge and because they offer an attractive visual and multimedia interface that can address linguistic and cultural concerns. But given corporations’ growing interest in the natural resources of the Arctic and the concomitant rise in government concern about claims to Arctic sovereignty, such maps may also be of interest to a broad range of actors and for a variety of purposes. Because these projects rely heavily upon, and record, oral knowledge, and because they convert such knowledge into highly malleable and easily disseminated digital content, they raise challenging issues around informed consent, intellectual and cultural property, and privacy. This article identifies and examines these issues and describes the collaborative and interdisciplinary research established to identify and address the use of traditional knowledge in digital cartography.

The Cost(s) of Geospatial Open Data

The provision of open data by governments at all levels has rapidly increased over recent years. Given that one of the dominant motivations for the provision of open data is to generate ‘value’, both economic and civic, there are valid concerns over the costs incurred in this pursuit. Typically, costs of open data are framed as internal to the data providing government. Building on the strong history of GIScience research on data provision via spatial data infrastructures, this article considers both the direct and indirect costs of open data provision, framing four main areas of indirect costs: citizen participation challenges, uneven provision across geography and user types, subsidy of private sector activities, and the creation of inroads for corporate influence on government. These areas of indirect cost lead to the development of critical questions, including constituency, purpose, enablement, protection, and priorities. These questions are posed as a guide to governments that provide open data in addressing the indirect costs of open data.

Legal Issues in Mapping Traditional Knowledge: Digital Cartography in the Canadian North

Abstract Digital cartography offers great potential for mapping the traditional knowledge of indigenous communities. This is particularly so because of the close relationship between such knowledge and traditional lands. Yet the mapping of traditional knowledge also raises distinct legal and ethical considerations which should be at the forefront in the design and implementation of indigenous digital cartography projects. This paper examines these considerations through the lens of digital atlases jointly created by Inuit communities and Carleton University’s Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre (GCRC).

Cybercartography and Traditional Knowledge: Responding to Legal and Ethical Challenges

Abstract Cybercartography offers rich potential for the mapping of traditional knowledge (TK). At the same time, the particular characteristics of TK pose significant challenges for cybercartographers. TK is more than a collection of informational ‘artefacts’ that can be placed on a map; it forms part of a knowledge system that is often fundamentally different from dominant Western systems. These differences require new paradigms for thinking about maps and their objectives generally, and for thinking more specifically about how information is represented and disseminated through cybercartography. In this chapter, the authors examine the nature of TK and the potential of cybercartography for its representation. The authors consider the role of law (defined as explicit and enforceable rules) and normativity (defined as ‘ought’ statements that guide social relations) in shaping relationships between cartographers and the contributors of TK. They consider how those involved in such projects can use both technological and legal tools to define the terms of their collaboration and to articulate their expectations in sharing their information with a global community.

Police Service Crime Mapping as Civic Technology: A Critical Assessment

It is increasingly common for municipal police services in North America to make online crime maps available to the public. This form of civic technology is now so widely used that there is a competitive private sector market for crime mapping platforms. This paper considers the crime maps made available by three Canadian police forces using platforms developed by U.S.-based private sector corporations. The paper considers how these crime maps present particular narratives of crime in the city, evaluates the quality of the mapped data, and explores how laws shape and constrain the use and reuse of crime data. It considers as well the problems that may arise in using off-the-shelf solutions – particularly ones developed in another country. It asks whether this model of crime mapping advances or limits goals of transparency and accountability, and what lessons it offers about the use of private sector civic technologies to serve public sector purposes.

The Privacy/Transparency Balance in Open Government

This paper explores strategies for balancing privacy with transparency in the release of government data and information as part of the growing global open government movement and within an evolving technological context. Government data or information may contain many different types of personal information. In some cases, transparency will require the release of this personal information; in other cases, the release of personal information will not advance the goals of government transparency. The situation is complicated by the availability of technologies that facilitate widespread dissemination of information and that allow for the mixing and mining of information in ways that may permit the reidentification of individuals within anonymized data sets. This paper identifies a number of strategies designed to assist in identifying whether data or information contains personal information, whether it should be released notwithstanding the presence of personal information, and what techniques might be used to minimize any possible adverse privacy impacts.

A Mouse is a Mouse is a Mouse: A Comment on the Supreme Court of Canada's Decision on the Harvard Mouse Patent (Harvard College v Canada (COMR of Patents))

On 5 December 2002, the Supreme Court of Canada handed down its long awaited decision in Harvard College v Canada (Comr of Patents).1 Known as the Harvard Mouse case, it had its genesis in the Canadian Patent Commissioner’s decision to deny a patent over a genetically engineered creature known as the ‘oncomouse’. The mouse, which had been patented in the United States, numerous European countries,2 Japan and other countries,3 brought to the forefront in Canada the issue of whether a higher life form could be the subject of a patent. After dividing opinions in the courts below, the issue also split the Supreme Court of Canada, resulting in a somewhat surprising 5:4 ruling that the definition of ‘invention’ in the Patent Act4 did not extend to include a higher life form such as the Harvard mouse. The split is a profound one. While the majority of the court reflects what can almost be characterized as a precautionary approach to patenting higher life forms, the dissenting justices emphasize the economic and global imperatives of recognizing patents over virtually all forms of innovation. uf773uf775uf76duf76duf765uf772 uf732uf730uf730uf733 Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal 105